Cant play AVI file on Mac, created on PC - Why ???

[beammeup]

I intend to capture about 20 hours of Video 8 footage on my PC for a friend who has a Mac with final cut pro. I will then copy all the files to an external harddrive so the Mac user can keep the drive and edit the files herself later into DVDs

The problem so far is that the 3 second ( 14 mg ) test file I emailed her can't be read in FCP or iMovie. I sent a AVI file captured with Vegas ( PC )

( Lucky we did a test file before I captured all 20 hours )

Anybody help me with a file type that I can create with either Vegas, or Procoder on the PC, that can be imported into final Cut on the Mac.

The Mac user wants to do some serious editing, so we've decided against MPG2 files.

any advice appreciated

thanks
Scott

[pixel zombie]

if you can't view with QT you won't be able to edit in FCP, sounds like you just need to d/l the codec needed for the avi...open in VLC and check the info under stream 1 to see which flavor of avi you have...

[Cornucopia]

You (or She) must be doing something wrong. This one's a no-brainer.

Capture (transfer) from DVtape to DV-AVI (type2) file in Vegas (the default setting).
This is completely readable as-is in FCP. We do this very thing (successfully) on a weekly basis.

Since you have Vegas, you could also export to QT/MOV (DV-NTSC codec).

Maybe you are saving to an HD that has NTFS filesystem (as Macs can't normally read NTFS)...

Scott

edit: ...or maybe your email systems messed it up.

[terryj]

What version of FCP and iMovie does you Mac Friend have?

DV-AVI is only importable in FCP 5 or later, not sure on iMovie
( haven't used iMovie since version 3). I've tried DV-AVI import
into FCP 4.5HD and had no luck; the file was from Premiere
6 on a PC though, I had to have it exported as a Quicktime
Movie, using DV-NTSC codec, and it worked great.

Also, rather than email her the file to TEST and have
your email/ISP mess it up ( AOL is notorious for this),
use a file sharing site like
Useekfiles or rapidshare to upload the file and have
the Mac user download it from the site.

But as Corn said, having Vegas save the files to QT/Mov on
an external FW Hard Drive, formatted for MS-DOS, will
enable you to just give the HD to your mac friend for
them to import natively into FCP.

[Cornucopia]

**Note--Filesystem compatibilities:

FAT (MSDOS)-Ok, but not such large files, volumes, or filenames
FAT32 (Win98+)-Good, filesizes can be larger (but still 4GB limit?), larger volume limit, filenames fine
NTFS (NT/2k/Xp/Vista)-Won't work on Macs without 3rd Party/Addon filesytem driver for Macs (don't know of any offhand), otherwise great--no filesize limits, volume limits, LONG names
HFS (Mac)-Ok, but similar problems to FAT, plus won't work on PCs without 3rd Party/Addon filesystem driver for PCs (MacDrive does this great!)
HFS+ (Mac 8.5+)-Good, but similarly won't work on PCs as above (MacDrive great here, too!)
Others...much more difficult...

Therefore, FAT32 is probably the best to use.
Make your filenames fairly short and compatible with both PCs and Macs.

Scott